Stopping By: American Songs

Outstanding tenor and recent Juilliard School graduate Kyle Bielfield has lost no time in making quite a name for himself in the realms of opera and art song alike. In this, his debut recording, he offers a carefully chosen assortment of outstanding American art songs by the finest domestic composers - to include Amy Beach, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, Samuel Barber, John Duke, Ned Rorem, Mark Abel and others. He further blesses us with classic examples of nostalgia-ridden vocal Americana by Stephen Foster, Aaron Copland, Irving Berlin and Leonard Bernstein. All texts are also by American writers and poets. The title theme derives from the album's three winning settings of former American Poet Laureate Robert Frost's signature poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."

Kyle is blessed with a gorgeous, silvery lyric tenor voice: an instrument that he applies with consummate skill, rare expressiveness and deep emotion. These virtues combine to produce memorable and incredibly moving performances. Pianist Lachlan Glen provides virtuosic, sensitive and empathetic keyboard collaboration throughout - and cellist Michael Samis's lovely obbligatos grace several of the Americana selections.